Contest Rattles Animal Rights Groups

Published 9:00 pm, Wednesday, April 17, 2002

This weekend's rattlesnake roundup in Alamogordo has some folks showing their fangs.

The annual event draws up to 6,000 curious, if not cautious, visitors to the county fairgrounds and a small but vociferous band of critics, the latter including State Land Commissioner Ray Powell.

There's very little middle ground when it comes to the rattler roundup. On one side are Powell and animal rights groups. On the other are individuals like Ralph Coleman, an organizer of the event who calls Powell "a bunny hugger."

During the Rattlesnake Roundup, 1,200 or so rattlesnakes are captured, many of them western diamondbacks that are coaxed out of their winter holes near Alamogordo, some 200 miles south of Albuquerque. The reptiles are killed and some end up in chili.

Powell, a veterinarian, said the roundup is not only cruel, but also causes enormous damage to the balance of nature. The more snakes that are removed, he says, the greater the population of rodents.

"If we don't have a good balance of predators, the rodent population can go out of control," Powell said. "In a state like New Mexico, where we have the hantavirus and plague, this is a serious problem."

Hantavirus is an often-deadly disease carried by rodents, particularly deer mice, and has been blamed for the deaths of more than two dozen people in the state since the disease was identified in 1993.

Powell is warning those taking part in the roundup that if they remove snakes from state trust lands, they will be considered trespassers. Powell also plans to ask the Legislature next year to ban such events.

"It's exploiting a really important species that helps protect our delicate balance in our desert ecosystems," Powell said last week. "This is 2002 and it's just incredible that this is still happening."

Coleman contends snakes do more harm than good.

"We get a lot of flack from the bunny huggers," Coleman said. "But most of the snakes are gathered from private land, where the owners want the snakes removed. They're endangering their kids, their livestock and their pets."

Rattlesnake hunts are popular in other western states. One of the largest is held each year in Sweetwater, Texas, and in Oklahoma five communities hold roundups in April and May.

The rattler gatherers in Alamogordo, most of them amateurs, get about $4 a pound for the captured snakes.

Don Castillo, who runs a concessions company, will buy this year's cache of snakes, drown them and then sell virtually every part of them. The meat will go to a buyer in California who sells it to restaurants as a delicacy item.

"The meat is very delicious," said Castillo, who describes the taste as a combination of chicken and shrimp. "No fat and no cholesterol in it."

The skins are used to make items like belts, billfolds and hat bands. The rattles are made into earrings and key chains and the heads are sold as souvenirs.